This invention relates to a full body protective garment suppliable with breathable ventilating air from a remote source which provides the wearer with a double, positive air pressure barrier about the upper body portion of the suit to inhibit upper body contact with air borne contaminants present in an ambient atmospheric work environment.
Generally speaking, protective garments for workers have long been known and used in the prior art. Moreover, double layer protective suits adapted for being supplied with breathable ventilating air from a remote source have also been known to the prior art as for example, the double layer suit disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,833 issued to A. L. Moretti on June 9, 1981. The reference double layer suit provides for the distribution of breathable air from a pressurized remote source into an inner head enclosure of a double layered hood for respiration by the wearer. It also provides for the distribution of ventilating air about the limbs of the wearer between double layers of both the sleeves and the pants legs for maintaining a positive air pressure between the sleeve and leg layers. However, since the ends of the sleeves and pant legs are loose and open about the wearer's wrist and ankles respectively, air supplied to the space between the inner and outer layers readily escapes to ambient atmosphere.
For this reason, the subject patent recommends the garment primarily for use in cooling and ventilating the users limbs and only secondarily for assisting in preventing infiltration of air borne contaminates through the outer layer of the garment when the outer layer is formed of an air permeable material. Because of the fact that the outer sleeve of the reference suit are open and loose, the air space between the two sleeve layers is therefore susceptable to infiltration by air borne contaminates from the ambient environment even when the outer and inner layers of the garment are formed of air impervious material. However, since the referenced garment does not provide for ventilating air to be distributed under the inner garment, it is not likely that the inner garment would be suitable when constructed of an air impervious material. In any event, the reference garment does not provide for overlapping positive air pressure barriers in the upper body portion thereof. Accordingly, it can not directly ventilate the wearer's full body and merely assists in preventing infiltration of air borne contaminants by means of a single positive pressure air barrier.
By means of my invention, these and other difficulties encountered with prior art supplied air protective garments is substantially eliminated.